Evolution of Sexual Dimorphism
About me
I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, working on the evolution of sex chromosomes and of sex-biased gene expression in Judith Mank's lab at The University of British Columbia.
Education
2015-2019:
PhD in Evolutionary Biology, University College London
Advisor: Prof Judith Mank
2012-2015:
BSc (Hons) Zoology (1st Class), The University of Manchester
Dissertation advisor: Dr John Fitzpatrick
Research and travel grants
2017:
BBSRC Travel Grant, UCL
Conference contributions
2019:
Oral Presentation, Evolution Conference, Providence USA
Oral Presentation, The Evolution of Cooperation and Conflict Symposium, Uppsala Sweden
2018:
Co-organiser of symposium on Mate Preferences and Mating Systems & Poster presentation, 2nd Joint Congress on Evolutionary Biology, Montpellier France
2017:
Poster presentation, ESEB, Groningen The Netherlands
2016:
Oral presentation, EMPSEB, Gotland Sweden
Invited reviewer
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, PLoS Genetics, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Genome Biology and Evolution
Science outreach
2018:
Speaker at the London Soapbox Science event
Research
Under construction
The evolution of sexual dimorphism
Despite sharing the majority of their genome, males and females of the same species often show a wealth of phenotypic differences, affecting morphology, physiology, behavior and life history, among other traits. I am broadly interested in how sex-specific evolutionary pressures shape distinct male and female phenotypes. In some species, the two sexes differ by their sex chromosomes, and sex-limited (Y or W) genes partly explain the observed sexual dimorphism. To a large extent, however, sex differences are encoded by genes that are shared between males and females but that are expressed differently in the two sexes (sex-biased genes). In my research, I integrate genomic and transcriptomic data to explore the evolution of sex chromosomes and of sex-biased gene expression and their role in sexual dimorphism.
Publications
2019
7. Darolti I, Wright AE, Sandkam BA, Morris J, Bloch NI, Farré M, Fuller RC, Bourne GR, Larkin DM, Breden F, Mank JE (2019) Extreme heterogeneity in sex chromosome differentiation and dosage compensation in livebearers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:19031.
6. Farré M, Li Q, Darolti I, Zhou Y, Damas J, Proskuryakova AA, Kulemzina AI, Chemnick LG, Kim J, Ryder OA, Ma J, Graphodatsky AS, Zhang G, Larkin DM, Lewin, HA (2019) An integrated chromosome-scale genome assembly of the Masai giraffe (Giraffa camelopardalis tippelskirchi). GigaScience 8:giz090.
5. Wright AE, Darolti I, Bloch NI, Oostra V, Sandkam B, Buechel SD, Kolm N, Breden F, Vicoso B and Mank JE (2019) On the power to detect rare recombination events. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116:12607.
2018
4. Morris J, Darolti I, Bloch NI, Wright AE, Mank JE (2018) Shared and species-specific patterns of nascent Y chromosome evolution in two guppy species. Genes 9:238.
3. Fox G, Darolti I, Hibbitt JD, Preziosi RF, Fitzpatrick JL, Rowntree JK (2018) Bespoke markers for ex-situ conservation: application, analysis and challenges in the assessment of a population of endangered undulate rays. Journal of Zoo and Aquarium Research 6:50-56.
2. Darolti I, Wright AE, Pucholt P, Berlin S and Mank JE (2018) Slow evolution of sex-biased genes in the reproductive tissue of the dioecious plant S. viminalis. Molecular Ecology 27:694–708.
2017
1. Wright AE, Darolti I, Bloch NI, Oostra V, Sandkam B, Buechel SD, Kolm N, Breden F, Vicoso B and Mank JE (2017) Convergent recombination suppression suggests a role of sexual conflict in guppy sex chromosome formation. Nature Communications 8:14251.
Funding
I am very grateful for my PhD research funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council through the London Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme.
